Durrell’s Corfu

As a teenager in the 1930s, Gerald Durrell was entranced by Corfu and years later he celebrated its natural beauty in his book, My Family and Other Animals. Since then, the island has changed as tourism has boomed. Development has marred much of the coastline, but there are places where the spellbinding landscape of Durrell's memory survives, says Mark Ellingham in the Guardian.

Drive north out of Corfu Town

and, as the road climbs into the hills, the resorts fall miraculously away. Travel on to the island's "gorgeous, wooded northeast coast", and you'll come to the Bay of Agni. This is Corfu as Durrell might recognise it, changed little since his brother Lawrence lived nearby.

At Agni, there is "just a village, a trio of seafront tavernas, and some basic studio rooms let out by a man called Pericles". But it's a great base from which to hire a motorboat and "putter about the coast".

The pebbly beaches and rocky coves are "irresistible", and the tavernas all have wooden jetties. Moor here, and you can enjoy a leisurely lunch while watching yachts glide by. In the background is the coast of Albania, just two miles away. It's "as easy as pie" to cross over